Danny Boyle

A humble man from humble beginnings, Danny Boyle (b. 1956) became a popular cinema darling when Slumdog Millionaire won big at the 2009 Academy Awards. Prior to this achievement, this former theater and television director helped the British film industry pull itself out of a decades-long slump. With Trainspotting he proved British films could be more than stuffy, period dramas; they could be vivacious and thrilling with dynamic characters and an infectious soundtrack. This collection of interviews traces Boyle's relatively short fifteen-year film career, from his outstanding low-budget debut Shallow Grave to his Hollywood studio films, his brief return to television, and his decade-in-the-making renaissance.Taken from a variety of sources including academic journals, mainstream newspapers, and independent bloggers, Danny Boyle: Interviews is one of the first books available on this emerging director. As an interviewee, Boyle displays an engaging honesty and openness. He talks about his films 28 Days Later Millions, and others. His success proves that classical storytelling artists still resonate with audiences.

Cover

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

“Everyone was saying my dad will be able to graze sheep on his lawn
now!”1 After winning an Oscar for Best Director, most people would
imagine this success to provide a little more benefit than giving your
father unprecedented grazing rights but, then again, not everyone is
Danny Boyle. Perhaps as philosophically and creatively far away from
Hollywood as a mainstream...

Chronology

Filmography

Lean, Mean, and Cruel

Danny Boyle doesn’t like talking about “ideas” in his new film, Shallow
Grave . He doesn’t like talking about ideas in film in general because,
he says, it’s pompous, self-conscious, and patronizing to the audience.
It’s an interesting position, coming from a man whose early career as a
director was in theatre...

The Boys Are Back in Town

h Few British movies begin quite as arrestingly as Trainspotting . Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” is pounding away on the soundtrack. With store detectives in hot pursuit, Renton is running down Edinburgh’s Princes Street, that cynosure for shoppers, tourists, and tartan-and-shortbread ...

Trainspotters

Andrew Macdonald is in the Groucho Club, introducing his team to me. “I lie on the phone,” he says with a chuckle, then points at Danny Boyle. “He shouts at actors, and [indicating John Hodge] he writes scripts in his bedroom.” The three of them—producer, director, writer—dissolve into giggles at a flippant remark which belies their position ...

Trainspotting: The Choice of a New Generation

Perhaps it’s a terminal dose of Omniplex Jaded Despair Syndrome
which draws me to certain types of film. Last year it was Before Sunrise,
Once Were Warriors, and Clerks ; this year it’s La Haine and Trainspotting....
Wildly diffuse, what these films have in common are the simple qualities
of a tight cast, a vibrant narrative line, and an integrity of style and
subject-matter...

Train Conductor: The Director Who Dared to Violate the Just Say No Code

The Trainspotting machine, which started rolling as a cult novel in Scotland’s slums (passed hand-to-hand at outlawed raves) and gathered steam as a controversial West End play, is now in full locomotion, a wildly successful movie in Europe with raging fires of hype being stoked for its arrival on our shores. But will a movie about a bunch of ...

Fame? They Can Keep It

“Fame? They can keep it!” . . . or so Cameron Diaz thought, on location
for a quirky kidnap caper in Utah. Except this little indie movie just
happened to be the eagerly awaited follow-up to Trainspotting, her costar
just happened to be the next Obi-Wan Kenobi, and director Danny
Boyle just happened......

Sink or Swim

.A young, slightly giddy man introduces Danny Boyle, John Hodge, and Andrew Macdonald—the hottest movie team in Britain, the sizzlers who brought you Shallow Grave and Trainspotting . There is polite applause. We’re in Dublin for the Republic’s premiere of their biggest film, ...

Back from the Beach

His return to the BBC, where he cut his teeth on eight single films and the series Mr. Wroe’s Virgins , is being presented as a blueprint for the future of TV drama. It’s also the first time in more than seven years that Macdonald, the team behind all his films ...

All the Rage

Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, actor Cillian Murphy, and producer Andrew Macdonald were up an east London tower block, making a film about the end of the world. Popular movie-makers always hope to be ahead of the ...

Danny Boyle: A Death Less Ordinary

I guess, very simply, it’s a story of a group of survivors trying to make their way to safety after the outbreak of a terrible viral infection in Britain. This virus is so virulent, it sweeps through the whole population and leads to a kind of apocalyptic landscape, where no one appears ...

Danny Boyle: The Looking Closer Interview

Overstreet : In spite of Damian, who’s a God-fearing boy, a friend of
the saints, and a help to the poor, Millions never becomes “preachy.”
Was that difficult to do?
Boyle : You can go through the whole filmmaking experience being
careful, saying, “I’ve got to make sure this isn’t preachy.” But you can’t
make a film like that. What...

Zombies, Smack Addicts, and Starbucks

British director Danny Boyle first burst onto the scene with the acclaimed Hitchcockian thriller Shallow Grave in 1994, and quickly followed it up with a bona fide pop culture phenomenon, Trainspotting . His next two films...

Sunshine Superman

You would think that after two weeks of solidly promoting his latest film Sunshine at screenings in London, Manchester, and on TV, radio, and in print, Danny Boyle would be getting just a little bit tired of the whole proceedings, especially since I am his penultimate interviewer ...

Danny Boyle Talks about Sunshine

FD : Danny Boyle joins us. His new film is Sunshine , it’s out this week. Just for people who haven’t seen it yet, just give us the basic premise DB : So, in fifty years time, the Sun is dying and Earth is kind of frozen in a solar winter and there’s this spaceship called Icarus II and it’s ...

Interview: Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle has nailed nearly every genre in cinema and now, after turning down the opportunity to direct the fourth installment of Alien , he has opted to try his hand at science fiction. The cult director has already had an astonishing career, winning twenty-four awards along the way for films such as Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, ..

Peter Hawley Interviews Danny Boyle

PH : Hi, I’m Peter Hawley from Flashpoint Academy, from the Film Department
there. We’re with Danny Boyle who is in town for Sunshine
We saw it last night. We took some students and we loved the film. I
think the whole audience loved the film and thank you for taking the
time to talk to us...

2007’s Space Odyssey: Q&A with Sunshine Director Danny Boyle

Director Danny Boyle seems to live for dabbling in different genres—and bending them all—each new film markedly unlike his last. He’s with stops everywhere in between. Now the much-admired filmmaker behind Trainspotting ...

Boyle’s Orders

As part of the Chicago International Film Festival, director Danny
Boyle—the man behind Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary,
The Beach, Millions, 28 Days Later , and Sunshine —brought his new...
film, Slumdog Millionaire, to town. It’s an almost epic tale of a boy who
survives the slums of Mumbai and becomes a winner on the Indian..

Slumdog Millionaire : Danny Boyle Interview

Not that many interviews begin with a globally respected film director spontaneously reassuring their interviewer regarding the current state of the economy. And not too many interviews also incorporate a debate on how and where the women of Indian slums manage to dispose ...

Director Danny Returns Home to a Rip-Roaring Welcome

It may have been a million miles away from the bright lights of Hol-lywood, but film director Danny Boyle was given a rip-roaring welcome. The fifty-two-year-old, whose film Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars, was besieged by fans and autograph collectors on Sunday when ...

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